The Painful Story

Where do I begin? What a weekend we had. On Friday Paul and I had his annual engineering banquet to attend. It kept us out quite late, and thinking back on it now, I remember feeling well and thinking I should be tired and queasy.

Then on Saturday morning I noticed I was spotting, which has never happened to me before in a pregnancy. Needless to say, I was extremely upset. Light spotting continued during the day. I spoke with my midwife and a doctor and was advised to do bed rest with the intent to go in on Monday and get a shot of progesterone.

I woke at about 5:30 yesterday morning thinking I was bleeding heavily. I went to the bathroom and confirmed my worse fears. As I sat on the toilet, I began to lose a lot of clots and called out for Paul. He came in and held me. I began to feel faint. I passed out while he was holding me and he thought I was having a seizure. I stopped breathing, got all rigid, my eyes rolled back and I started grunting. I remember having all these images flashing in front of me. I came to after about 10 seconds and couldn't move my hands. It took me a while to gain control of my breathing and awhile after that before I started feeling better. I was exhausted and so sad, knowing I had miscarried. We went back to bed, but I didn't really sleep. I was crampy and just couldn't seem to quiet my mind enough to even doze.

I called my midwife a couple hours later and told her what had happened. She advised me to go to urgent care., not necessarily because of the miscarriage, but because of the fainting/seizure. She felt it was important to rule out a seizure. I was already exhausted and the thought of going to the hospital (where urgent care is and where we found out Felicity died) only added to my emotional exhaustion. I told her that Paul and I would talk about it. Plus we would have to wait until my parents could come and watch the boys.

I spent the morning resting and crying. I did something I'd been avoiding for some time. I watched the video of the pictures of Felicity that was made for us by our NILMDTS photographer. While watching it, I sobbed my heart out. I will admit that I had some real feelings of despair. I didn't (and still don't) understand why I was having to go through this after having already lost Felicity. I cried out to God and yet still felt so empty.

We finally went to urgent care around 2:15. As we pulled into the parking lot, I began to feel panicky. Being there brought so many thoughts of Felicity and with those thoughts, so much pain. My midwife met us there, which was a huge blessing. She has blessed us by being so much more than just a caregiver. The triage nurse lightly chastised us for waiting so long to come in. She admitted us to the ER rather than urgent care, based on what happened. We had assumed that would happen. As we were assigned to a room and the nurse began the standard care (blood pressure, IV, questions, etc.) I began to wonder what doctor might be treating me. I asked and the nurse told us that she had just come on duty and hadn't had a chance to look and see who the doctor on duty was. (We've been to this ER twice before and haven't been too pleased with the doctors we've seen there.) After the nurse left the room, Paul, Maureen, and I began talking about the doctor who treated Felicity. We tried to remember his name, but no one was certain of both his first and last name. Paul and I never got to meet him and thank him for trying to save Felicity.

After 15 minutes or so, the door opened and the doctor came it. My eyes immediately went to his name tag and when I read it, I knew it was Felicity's doctor. He came to shake my hand and I starting crying. I told him that he had worked to try to revive our daughter four months prior. He remembered right away. Through my tears, I thanked him for caring for her. As much as I hadn't wanted to go to the hospital, I knew then that it was providential that we had come and that we had waited until later in the day to come. Not that I wanted to lose a baby in order to meet this doctor, but I know now that meeting him is important to my healing. He told us that he had practiced Obstetrics for 10 years prior to Emergency Medicine and he had seen many knotted umbilical cords, but none as tightly knotted as Felicity's.

I was treated with compassion and care. The doctor seemed to have some faith as he referred to this baby as such, not diminishing my feelings in any way. He talked about the intricacies of how a baby is created in reference to why I may have lost this baby. I had to have a pelvic exam, ultrasound, and blood work. It was determined that I did not have a seizure. My miscarriage is most likely complete and the baby had possibly died prior to the ultrasound I had on the 12th. We'll never know. I have to have my HcG levels checked again tomorrow to make sure they're still dropping, to rule out the very slight chance of ectopic pregnancy.

Physically, I'm fine. Emotionally, I'm managing. I feel like I'm back to the beginning of my grief after losing Felicity. I know this baby was a different baby, but I'm having trouble separating the two, when it comes to my sadness. This baby would've been due on Oct. 9th, just three days after Felicity died, and two days before we buried her.

Though my despair was very deep yesterday, I've had a revelation from the Holy Spirit. While I will continue to be sad, Satan wants me to quit. He wants me to shake my fist at God and curse Him. Satan wants my marriage to fail and my children to not have a mother to care for them. Satan wants me to give up. Well, I am putting my foot down NOW! I refuse to let Satan win! I will continue on, with the help of my savior. I will see the new possibilities in each day and when I'm sad, I'll be sad, but I won't turn my back on God, regardless of my suffering. Satan will not win in my life! I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!

I realize that many people don't discuss miscarriages and I also refuse to do that. I've seen too many people suffer in silence, when sharing may help bring healing. Thank you all for your prayers and comments and messages! I read them and feel blessed to be so cared for by so many.